World Environment Day 2011

World Environment Day (WED) is held on 5 June every year. This event is motivated by United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP).

WED began in 1972 and UNEP stimulated all around the earth, encouraged political action. This year we will be celebrating 39^th World Environment Day. They have announced the theme of this year’s WED as ‘Forests: Nature at your service’. This theme implicitly tells the quality of life and health is dependent on the eco-system.  Ecosystem is balanced along with the presence of lush green forests.

India is house of 1.2 billion people and then it is putting pressure over the degrading and reducing forestry.  Currently, 23 percent of India’s land is under forest and half of that land is barren land and hills.  This theme inspires all to go for tree plantations.

How you can celebrate Environment Day this Year??

School tree-planting drives to community clean-ups, car-free days, photo competitions on forests, bird-watching trips, and city park clean-up initiatives, exhibits, green petitions, nationwide green campaigns.

Participate in WED blogging competition: This competition is for everyone, who can blog about environment. Find more about completion here.

You can organize special events also with the help of WED.

For the Planet Earth: Around the World

World Environmetal day will be celebrated on Sunday, 5 June. This event is the start of many Go Green activities in the world. I could save the whole calendar of This “Save The Planet Activities” for my person reference , Go Green activists and environmentalists.

• SUNDAY, JUNE 5
  GLOBAL – United Nations World Environment Day.
• MONDAY, JUNE 6
  BONN, Germany – The United Nations Framework Convention on
  Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting (to Jun. 17). This is an annual
  meeting of negotiators to discuss technical details of
  implementing the Kyoto Protocol and for the last two meetings to
  negotiate a new climate deal to replace Kyoto in 2013.
  OSLO – International conference on climate change refugees and
  displaced people.
• TUESDAY, JUNE 7
  PARIS – G20 meeting on nuclear safety (to June 8).
  MILAN – Renewable Energy World Europe 2011 (to June 9).
• MONDAY, JUNE 13
  NEW YORK – Global Energy and Climate Summit.
• TUESDAY, JUNE 14
  GENEVA, Switzerland – 17th International iron ore Symposium
  (toJun. 15).
  ROME – Wind Power Italia (to June 15).
• THURSDAY, JUNE 16
  HELSINKI – EU GMES and Climate Change Conference (to June 17).
• FRIDAY, JUNE 17
  LUXEMBOURG – EU Environment Council.
  LUXEMBOURG – The European Commission (Research & Innovation DG
  – Directorate Environment) organises an InfoDay on FP7
  Environment Research.
  GLOBAL – World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought.
• TUESDAY, JUNE 21
  JOHANNESBURG – Solar South Africa (to June 22).
  NEW YORK – 8th Renewable Energy Finance Forum (REFF) (to June
  22).
• WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22
  BRUSSELS – The 2nd Official Annual Conference of the European
  Ocean Energy Association (EU-OEA) (to June 23). Colin Imrie,
  Head of Energy and International Climate Change, Scottish
  Government to give speech.
• TUESDAY, JUNE 28
  LONDON – Global Water Leakage Summit 2011 (to June 29).
• FRIDAY, JULY 1
  AUSTRALIA – Australia’s multi-billion dollar carbon trade
  scheme that would force Australia’s biggest polluting companies
  to buy permits for every tonne of carbon they emit comes into
  effect.
• MONDAY, JULY 4
  AGADIR, Morocco – Morocco Investors’ Summit 2011 (to July 5).
  Amina Benkhadra, Minister of Energy, Mines, Water and
  Environment, Morocco to give speech.
• WEDNESDAY, JULY 6
  LONDON – Global Wind Power Finance & Investment Congress (to
  July 7).
• MONDAY, JULY 11
  SYDNEY – Commonwealth Law Ministers Meeting (to July 14).
• THURSDAY, JULY 21
  NEW DELHI – National Energy Investment Summit 2011 (to July
  22). Deepak Gupta (IAS), Secretary, Ministry of New and
  Renewable Energy, Government of India to give speech.

Water out of Mist

There are countries where most of the ground area covered by desert. Countries like Namibia has no water reservoirs like Well, River in their country. Every day comes with the scarcity of drinking water. One innovative idea is evolved… called Fog harvesting.
Early morning air, coming over the sea is cold, moisture in the air can be collected in small reservoirs to satisfy small scale requirement of water.  One Canadian charitable trust FogQuest, is working to install devises to collect water in developing countries. Devise made of plastic mesh has capability to collect pure drinking water through water vapor in the atmospheric air.

About Fog Quest: FogQuest is a non-profit, registered Canadian charity dedicated to planning and implementing water projects for rural communities in developing countries. We utilize innovative fog collectors as well as effective rainfall collectors to make optimum use of natural atmospheric sources of water.

Mechanism:
Size of water droplet is very small, around 1 to 50 microns. Hydrophilic surface of devise holds water holds and gathers water droplets due to electrostatic attraction. This prevent them being picked up and blown out by wind. Collected water run off over the channel into water container. Channel is made up of water repelling material like Teflon.
Geographical Area:
Mountains and deserts where fog is present and water resources are very low, are ideal places for water harvesting.

Top Ten Actions on Earth Day

All these are standard actions mentioned by Earh day Canada group. They have started the Earth Hour from Year 1970. I liked to collect and spread these actions on blogosphere.

So, Promise yourself to follow few of them.

1. Smart Shopping
   • Buy what you need, not what you want
   • Consider renting and borrowing things that are seldom needed
   • Buy used items from garage sales and second-hand stores
2. Simple Savers
   • Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs
   • Use aerators on faucets and shower heads
   • Weatherstrip windows and doors
3. Transportation Alternatives
   • Walk, cycle, car pool and use public transportation
   • When driving, reduce idling and maintain correct tire pressure
   • Consider car sharing programs or renting
4. Food Choices
   • Choose local and organic foods that are in season, and support local food producers
   • Eat less meat
5. Washing and Drying
   • Wash full loads of clothes in cold water and hang to air dry
6. Heating and cooling
   • For summer air conditioning, set your thermostat to 24°C or 25°C
   • For winter heating, set your thermostat to 19°C or 20°C
   • Install ceiling fans and programmable thermostats
7. Close to Home
   • Vacation, travel and work as close to home as possible
8. Bathroom Basics
   • Take short showers instead of baths
   • Close water taps while brushing your teeth
9. Careful Cleaning
   • Choose natural, non-toxic cleaning products
   • Make simple, natural cleaners with ingredients like vinegar, baking soda and water
10. Don’t Discard
    • Donate, reuse and recycle items before throwing them into the trash
    • Harmful materials like chemicals, batteries, electronics, etc. should be taken to local hazardous waste depots or recyclers

More Information can be found on Earth Day Canada site here.

Earth Day by Google

Google has honored Earth Day by displaying very beautiful animated Doodle on this auspicious day. Every Year, Google celebrates Earth Day by different creative ways. The below image is a static image, but on mouse hover animations are triggered.

Earth Day

“It is a beautiful, serene place in a snowcapped forest. A rivulet is flowing between two hills.  It is born out of a clamorous waterfall. Water has turned turbulent while hitting the ground and spreading the water all around, making the earth surface damp. This rivulet has supported many plants and animals spices on both sides, while moving through this dense green forest. I disturb the flowing water by taking over the cursor, couple of fishes and a frog leap out of water. One fish shows its might by climbing against the descending water, but as it reaches the top, one dark polar beer engulfs it.

Red, yellow, orange colored flowers are blossomed around some of the trees and lush green shrubs. This forest has housed many herbivorous animals. I could see, a couple of pandas are playing behind the tall grass. At some distance, one lion is deeply slept over the grass. Lion may be snoring after nice meal of panda.  

There are many tree on both sides of river formed from this rivulet.  Braches of trees spread long area around the root. Birds are living happily in the nests among the braches.  As I disturb one branch of tree, a red winged bird takes off in the sky.  One monkey is sitting on  one of the top branches of a tree. As I try to touch the monkey, it climbs down hurriedly.

Couple of snow capped mountain glowing beside this green, blissful heaven. Two penguins are walking over the snow. One of them, playfully, slides and jumps in the river.”

Very creatively animated scene of beautiful nature has been designed by Google. Well balanced life cycle is sustained in this nature. A very beautiful Google doodle !

Last Years Google Doodle (2010): Google has displayed below Google Doodle last year.

Along with just having Doodle, Google has started investing much of their revenue of renewable energy sources and environment friendly resources. They has invested about $ 168 million on Solar Plant towers in California desert. Find more information about this in one of my previous post.

More Information about Earth Hour in my Previous Posts below.
1. What to do on Earth Day
2. Wikipedia Information about Earth day
Find more Go Green Initiatives of Google here http://www.google.com/green.

Simple Ways To Protect Planet Earth

With the couple of comments on previous the Earth Day blog post, I am writing brief information about the major tips to ‘Go Green’ (some suggested by wordpress readers. Thank you all.

1. Recycle– If we look inside our home, we find more than 50 percent residential appliances including chair, tables are made up of plastic. Poly thin bags are prepared with non-degradable polymer material and over usage of plastic has turned disaster to the environment. Only usage to destroy plastic is to burn it or bury it underground. Carry bags are also available in the degradable material that is made up from coconut root.
2. Use Energy saving appliances- If we replace Incandescent light bulbs with CFL(compact florescent light) bulbs, it will save much part of electricity bill. It consume less electricity as well as lifecycle of such bulb is much higher than ordinary bulbs.
3. Water Saving Taps and showerhead- Low flow shower heads saves much water if installed in residential complexes. Remote detector water taps are also available in market. These water taps are open till the person’s hand is in front of water tap. Such water taps can be used in wash basins in restaurant as well as residential complexes.
4.  Reduce-Reuse-Recycle: We are not aware that many daily usable things in the market are coming in the form that can be recycled and reused. I have listed below recyclable and reusable things below.
   I found one good informative post here by Debi on Chocolate Wasteland Blog.
   Following few ways comes under this principles only, but explained in details.
5. Books, Magazines and News papers– In coming days, rarely people are reading news papers in the form of hard copy. I myself stopped getting news papers from local vender. I read them on line. Huge amount of paper pulp has been saved because of e-papers and e-magazines, in turn tree cutting has been prevented for this purpose. Many libraries also updating their books in soft copy, so that user can just subscribe the library through internet.
6. Recycle E-Waste: Computers, Scrapped DVDs and CDs are yearly growing and considered as major part of e-waste. Hard drive, cabinet and internal hardware of Scrapped computers are difficult to recycle. During the recycling, silicon, registers and burned to separate from motherboard and causes air pollutions. This situation has changed in some way. Size of electronic appliances has been reduced.
7. Used Mobile phones: It is one of the major e-wastes. People use mobile for general communication purpose and entertainment. Competitive technology has made cell phone companies to update the versions many time in a single year. As the mobile versions, designs are updated. People dump away their old phone and purchase new ones. This habit has been increased tremendously. Mobile subscriber has grown exponentially higher. Cell phone is reached till the rural under developed countries like Sudan, Uganda, South Africa.
8. Avoid Food wastage: It is the good daily habit to cook only amount of food that is sufficient for people in home. If we imagine, there are countries where people won’t get food and some die of food shortage. Food inflation is growing due to reduced cultivable land.
9. Drive Less, Drive Smart:Whenver you skip using your own car, bike for general purpose, you are helping to reduce pollution. Public transportations are good for long routes. It saves money as well as fuel. There should not be hesitation to use public transportations.
   While going for shopping, men can preper bicycle. Sometimes, it may seem difficult, but China has reduced carbon foot prints by using cycle.Find my previous informative post about Bicycle Sharing Program in China

What to do on Earth Day?

Earth Day is celebrated on 22 April every year. Now, Day is coming on this Friday. I wrote this just to know what can be done ?

History of Earth Day:

Earth Day began in year 1970 as a simple start by college and university students in Canada. Just imagine that this is the birthday of our Mother Earth, even we don’t know when Earth has born. Raise the awareness to reduce the carbon foot prints.

Happy Earth Day

Get know information on Earth Day Cananda website.

Some different ways to celebrate Earth day

• Celebrate and Encourage: Celebrate and encourage “Green Living” festival on this week. You can use social media or just word of mouth. Speak about this to people around you.
• Climatic changes going on over the earth and irreversible. It means, we cannot revert back the degradation of Earth, but we can prevent it on time by creating awareness around. Earth Hour, Earth Day, Environment Day are celebrated for the same purpose.
• Action Oriented Plans: You can try out following options in daily life;
  1. Use energy-efficient appliances like using CFL instead of incandescent bulb for lightening. You can replace current bulbs with CFLs.
  2. Purchase organic food and cleaning products.
  3. User Green bags: Paper bags, which are made up of easily degradable material. Stop usage of plastic wherever possible. Encourage the same.
  4. Unplug appliances not in Use: This will save the electricity.
  5. Try out public transport instead of pulling your own car while local use and travel. Now, you are child of Mother earth, because you have turned environment friendly by reducing pollution and cutting the crude oil consumption.
  6. If you have a backyard behind your home, plant some vegetables and get rewarded with delicious tomatoes, cucumber.
• Do you have any other ideas, what can be done ? Tell me you story. I will write it on this website Giving you a Credit !

Why Green is beautiful ?

I am the mown grass, dying at your feet,
The pale grass, gasping faintly in the sun.
I shall be dead, long, long ere day is done,
That you may say: “The air, to-day, was sweet.”
I am the mown grass, dying at your feet.

-Margaret Gilman Davidson, Moritura

Remember the moment, when you have lied on the meadow. How did you really felt ? First, you feel of cold touch of grass. Green color is much soothing for your feeling.

Grass is intentionally grown in front of office and residential area. It is not really for green color 😉 Scientific reason behind is that grass attracts wind and cold breezes. It sucks Carbon-di-oxide(Co2) and flush the oxygen around. This is the reason we feel refreshing over the meadow.

Largest Investment of Google Till date

What is Google’s Largest investment Till Date?
Answer: Solar plant installations ! (As per News published the day before yesterday on Google blog)

Google has planned to design world’s largest Solar Power plant towers by investing about $ 168 million [ about 840 crore] for the project.

Solar Plants By Google

Solar plants are manufactured by Bright Source Inc. ISEGS technology of Bright Source will generate about 392 MW clean energy. This energy is equivalent to energy consumed by 90,000 cars for more than 25 years.

To cover the desert with Solar plants, they have use the non-cultivable land i.e. desert. The technology used for designing solar plates is called ‘heliostats’.
Large mirrors are used to attract sun rays and heat at the focal point. This heat is used to run the turbines, resulting electricity generation.

This is really noble initiative to use renewable energy for consumption. This will really reduce the electrical stress used for other purposes.

Great innovative ideas are called to take inspiration !

Save Water

I have written this small article to initiate the ‘Save Tiger’ campaign along with ‘Save Water’ campaign in our social awareness group – ‘Go Green’ club.

Save Water

What we can see in this image?

‘Birds are starving due to absence of water…’ This applies to all animals and birds, which needs water!

Principle/Social Responsibility: Along with human being, every other life on the Earth has equal right to live. Other life includes plants, animal of all type, terrestrial, aquatic.

‘Why water disappeared? This is due to increased atmospheric temperature caused by Global warming. It is surprising if anyone sees river with flowing water in summer season. This is not at all natural phenomenon, but side effect of human causes. Deforestation, multiplying population growth, industrialization, and pollution are few clear reasons. Major IT, Automation companies are partially responsible. Green house gases are flushed into air by ACs, refrigerators. This gas tears out ozone layer and allowing UV rays to burn the Earth surface. Even 4 to 5 degree temperature cause flood in the rivers, after melting the icecaps of Himalayas. For example, Yearly, flood of Brahmaputra river in Asam.

This is part of actual cause-effects of Global warming.

Why we did tree plantation?
To increase greeneries? But still why? Loss of full grown mountains and forests has erased animal life cycles. We must have heard, Leopards entering into societies. It is because, they don’t have their home now. We rarely see elephants, bears and other animals in future. Forget about Tigers, our national animal! At this moment, India has only 1411 tigers, which are caged in sanctuaries. Government has banned entertainment of animals and birds in Circus. Why? Because, On other side, we have only killed them. Still why? Principle. Tree plantation is effective when we push supportive ‘awareness campaign’ of decreasing animal spices.

What is Awareness campaign?
It is not about only having knowledge, but to spread it around as much as possible. Mails, posters, social Medias like Face book, Twitter are the effective tools. We do plantation to increase greenery, but already grown mountains and forest has been destroyed. India has about 23 percent total land covered with trees, below the actual required limit of 33 percent.